Politics of Crimea

Vladimir Varimez from the village of Bankovka is one of the 24 sailors who were arrested after three Ukrainian ships tried to cross the Kerch Strait, bTV reported.

The information was confirmed by the mayor of the village Viktor Genchev.

He added that Vladimir's father is still in Bankovka, but it is possible at some point to leave for Sevastopol to try to meet his son.

Ukraine's state security service has said that its intelligence officers were among the crew on Ukrainian naval ships seized by Russia in a standoff near Crimea.

Russia has seized three Ukrainian naval ships in waters near Moscow-annexed Crimea, raising fears of military escalation and prompting an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Monday, reports AFP. 

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley says an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council has been called over the escalating situation between Russia and Ukraine, reported the Time. 

Haley tweeted that a meeting has been called for 11 a.m. Monday.

Ukraine's navy said that Russia's border guards rammed one of its tugboats in the Black Sea off Moscow-annexed Crimea on Sunday in "openly aggressive actions."

Dodik, the leader of the Serb entity (RS) in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) was on Sunday elected as the new Serb representative in the tripartite Presidency of BiH.

The Ukrainian Embassy in Bulgaria condemned the illegal visit of several Bulgarian politicians and journalists to the occupied Crimea to attend a Week of Bulgarian Culture held on September 7-11.

This was stated in a statement by the Embassy of Ukraine in the Republic of Bulgaria, published on its Facebook page.

Acclaimed Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica will perform with his orchestra on August 22 in Russian-annexed Crimea, the artist told Russian news agency Tass on Tuesday, despite threats of sanctions.

"I always do what I think is right," Kusturica told TASS, adding that he is "not frightened in any way".

On 18 June 2018, the Council extended the restrictive measures in response to the illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol by Russia until 23 June 2019.

The measures apply to EU persons and EU based companies. They are limited to the territory of Crimea and Sevastopol. The sanctions include prohibitions on:

Crimea suffered a total power blackout on June 13 after an incident at a Russian power station, the local government and the Russian Ministry of Energy said.